Three ETHS Runners Advance To State

Stella Davis punched a return ticket to the Illinois High School Association state cross country meet Saturday.

And this time, she’ll have company.

Evanston teammate Rory Malia claimed the final individual qualifying spot for the girls who weren’t members of state qualifying teams – after an agonizing 20-minute wait while the official results were certified.

And Sam Froum made sure the boys program will also be represented by advancing to State for the second year in a row, this time with a 21st place overall finish.

The trio earned top finishes at the Class 3A Hoffman Estates Sectional on a perfect day for a distance race, and will race again next Saturday afternoon at Detweiller Park in Peoria.

Davis kept her eyes on the prize with a 10th place sectional finish, the next-to-last step to achieving her goal of an All-State designation at Peoria. She’s striving to move up from last year’s 30th place State finish and was clocked in 17 minutes, 38.98 seconds on Saturday at Busse Woods.

She’ll be joined by Malia, who placed 25th in 18:10.06. That sectional showing means ETHS will send more than one girl to State for the first time since Hannah Kaplan and Alexandra Lock earned that distinction back in 2007.

“I’m super excited to go back to State,” said Davis, a senior. “I was a little off my PR (personal record time) but I wasn’t really expecting a PR today. I’m super excited and blessed to get another week to run.”

A veteran competitor in both cross country and track, Davis still had to deal emotionally with a fast field in what is regarded as the state’s toughest big school sectional. It shook her confidence slightly at the start when the group of leaders was larger than at most in-season invitational meets.

“I just need to get used to being surrounded by so many top girls at the start, because it will be that way in Peoria,” she said. “I didn’t start out super fast. I just tried to get into a good position at first. Everyone started so much faster than I expected, but after the first half mile I was fine.

“This year I’m racing harder and I’m more confident going to State than I was last year. I haven’t stressed about running so much. I’m a very competitive person, but if I was up against people who had beaten me before, that would get into my head. Now it doesn’t.”

ETHS head coach Beth Arey noted that even with Davis’ prior experience in big meets, an adjustment was necessary for the senior standout to excel one more time on Saturday.

“The teams here are deep in talent, not like what you usually see at invitationals where there are four or five good girls (at the front),” Arey said. “That means there will be more runners up front than usual. That also means the start can be a bit overwhelming, and it’s been a full year since Stella’s had that kind of experience.

“She’s much better this year. Her competitive nature this year, her confidence, her knowledge and her experience of having led more races this year are all going to play into her ability to out-perform how she ran last year at State. She was so focused today.”

So was Malia, who had to endure an agonizing wait at the end of the race to find out whether or not she kept her season alive.

“That was the most stressful 20 minutes of my life. But omigod, it was worth the wait!” she exclaimed following a group hug with her teammates that climaxed with tears of joy. “That was by far the best race I’ve ever run (and a PR by eight seconds).

“I didn’t think I made it at first. I passed one girl in the last 400 (meters) but there was a girl in a blue uniform ahead of me and I thought she got 10th (at-large qualifying). The rest of the race is just a blur to me. I knew it would be super close.

“I’ve been practicing my race strategy more this year so I can move up on other runners. Today was definitely a test for me to try to stay calm and still feel that I had enough left to get to the place I wanted to get to. I realized State might be a possibility and I really, really wanted it. I was willing to do whatever it took to get to this point.”

Evanston finished 12th as a team with 304 points. Barrington set the pace for the seven qualifying teams with a winning total of 41 points, easily defeating runner-up Prospect with 76.

The Wildkits also counted Sammy Schuneman, 98th in 19:42; Sophia Hinton, 99th in 19:44.18; and Fiona Vosper, 114th in 20:08.43. Also competing were Irys Liang, 116th in 20:09.33, and Shaili Peters, 120th in 20:18.89.

Arey added that watching Malia achieve her season-long goal was a special moment.

“Rory’s had a great end-of-the season and it’s really been exciting to watch,” said the Evanston coach. “She wanted it badly, and she did the work to make it happen. We knew she could compete with the No. 1 runners from these other schools. She’s a tough kid. She’s dedicated and she’s hungry. When she wants something, she really works for it.

“Rory has the level of confidence it takes to believe in her training and to know that she was strong enough to pick people off in a race like this. She has the mentality of a racer, not to just finish.

“Waiting to find out if she made it, I was physically ill. She was upset because she assumed she didn’t make it and that was a gut-wrencher until we found out she made it. She wanted it so badly, and I wanted it for her.”

Froum’s experience after the meet was another déjà vu’ occasion. As a junior, he took the last qualifying spot at the sectional but that was a closer call than Saturday. His time of 15:11.41 on the 3-mile Busse Woods course was five seconds faster than the next best individual hopeful, Mundelein’s Elijah Mendoza.

The ETHS senior wasn’t really in a mood to celebrate his advancement, however. The Wildkits fell short of their expectation to advance the full team as they settled for a 10th place finish with 292 points. That was more than 100 points behind the 7th place automatic qualifying team, Libertyville.

New Trier won the team title with 98 points behind meet champion Ben Crane, who was timed in 14:14.01. Evanston’s top finishers behind Froum were Emir Arber Bombaci, 50th in 15:35.29; Emmitt Wilson, 62nd in 15:45.61; Andrew Rich, 95th in 16:13.40; Patrick Tu, 98th in 16:14.95; Eli Coustan, 117th in 16:33.75; and Tyler Ng, 133rd in 17:14.67.

“I’m disappointed that we didn’t qualify as a team,” Froum admitted. “It’s pretty disheartening to find out we didn’t make it. Last year we peaked too early, but this year we were able to keep the momentum going. Emmitt (Wilson) is the one who really kept us focused because he kept telling us our training was going exactly how we planned it and we had to stay patient. We had a lot of PRs at the conference meet.

“That’s the second fastest time I’ve ever run. This is a crazy (fast) sectional and I was hoping to go sub-15 today. That first mile was about 4:55, but in the second mile I slowed down and so did the rest of the group I was running with. So I couldn’t break 15 (minutes). But I still thought I had it locked down, because last year I ran 20 seconds slower and still made it to State.

“At the end I wasn’t as nervous (waiting) as last year. I still really wanted to make it and I was pretty surprised when I found out just how close it was.”

“Our guys did their thing and ran fast, but it wasn’t enough. The competition ran up to their expectations, too,” pointed out Evanston head coach Don Michelin Jr. “This is just a fast sectional.

“Sam did a good job of doing something we haven’t really done much of in the past and that’s targeting another team (to help run faster and place higher) instead of just trying for a PR. He attained a lot of confidence last week at the regional (when he hung with the top pack led by New Trier’s Crane) and he had the confidence to target New Trier’s other runners. He wound up splitting their No. 2 and No. 3 guys and he really did a good job of racing.

“That’s what we’re going to do more of in the future. We’re going to start racing against teams in these big meets and not just worry about PRs. We’re going to add that to our culture. We have to turn our ability into more man-to-man competition. Sam took that risk and it turned out well for him. You have to be able to target guys who are better than you are.”